It's a compilation of three different long stories, but rest assured I am back and we have so much to catch up on.
So the first thing I figured we should actually talk about was the most recent American Renaissance conference, which unfortunately I was unable to attend.
Hilariously, despite the fact that I've worked for American Renaissance on and off for five years, I have attended a grand total of Well, I mean, I think that it was interesting because we were dealing, of course, with the pandemic, but we were sort of in that sweet spot between the end of one panic and what's looking like the beginning of another.
So I don't think We got like the collapse in attendance that a lot of people were fearing.
It was well attended.
It was packed.
Obviously sold out the hotel and everything else.
The spirits were high.
There was no, I mean, I guess the biggest thing is that I think the whole, the whole movement is sort of, and this is why I'm more optimistic than ever before.
The whole movement is more serious than it was.
I mean, when you had.
The kind of sense in 2016, 2017 of you're being part of this wave and nothing can stand in its way.
But that was also because a lot of people, and again, I've been in this for a while.
I mean, a lot of people were just kind of entering it in for the first time.
Like, well, nothing bad is going to happen.
It's like, well, I mean, like a lot of stuff is going to happen.
Then you had a couple of years in the middle there where you had the beginning of.
I mean, a lot of people are still so tied psychologically to the fate of the Trump administration.
And then you had, of course, COVID, which shut down the one conference because nobody was having any conferences.
And so this year, I think you really had this sense of.
It's not, oh, we're coming back or, oh, we're doing this despite COVID or anything else.
It was more of a.
This is a typical state-of-the-movement style conference, and in many ways that made it way more important because what is the mood?
Are people depressed?
Are people fearful?
Are people optimistic?
Are people exuberant?
And I think the overall mood was just sort of serious and confident.
I mean, people, nobody, like I've said, you know, nobody is entering now surprised that You know, the law isn't fair, that like journalists might lie about you, that there are people out there who don't like you based on what, you know, they saw on a Netflix sci-fi show.
I mean, that's everybody who's coming in now knows the stakes, knows exactly what they're getting into, and they're still getting involved.
And that, I think, is the real victory compared to where we were a decade ago, where you didn't have a real movement. I mean, you just had a bunch of
individuals showing up, but there was no real sense of, like, what we're trying to accomplish. And I
think now there is that sense, and there's a greater sense of mission, there's a greater sense of
destiny, and there's a greater sense of accepting the mantle of history and saying, okay, like,
this is what we got to do.
Hey, good pitch.
And how do you think you did on your long-awaited debut as a conference speaker?
Oh, I, you know, of course, I never I never have any idea.
It's sort of like when I send in an essay and, you know, you kind of get this thing where you're looking at it and you're like, this is either completely brilliant or just like insane rambling and I can't tell which.
So you're, you're entirely dependent on, uh, what other people say.
As far as the speech went, I mean, everybody there, I mean, you can see it, obviously, uh, you can judge for yourself.
Everybody there seemed happy.
Uh, it was the crowd was definitely keeping me going.
I think that like most speeches I've done in my life, the first five minutes were carefully planned out and more or less scripted, half memorized.
And then after that I was just rolling and it had absolutely nothing to do with what I was planning to talk about.
I was more reacting to the people around me.
And I think one of the things that you kind of lose with video is, and maybe this is just something for next time, is I wasn't really talking to the video.
I was talking to the people in the room and I was talking and I was reacting to the people in the room and there was sort of a sense of I mean there were hundreds of people but it still felt like you know you were in a small group talking to a small group getting them pumped up being like okay guys like this is what we're about to do but it was hundreds of people and so that was kind of a cool sublime feeling of That camaraderie, but also combined with the numbers that this is, this is something that's real.
This is something that is actually capable of going somewhere as far as what I had to say.
I mean, a lot of people, and I know a lot of people have said, well, some of these words are good, but what does it actually mean in practice?
And I think there are, there are two things to say.
One is, as I was trying to say with the, uh, the overall objective of the speech.
Is there has to be a shift in strategy and tone, which is that we have to be presenting ourselves as we are the ones who are aggrieved and are demanding justice.
It cannot be this.
We are defending the system from radicals because the system is on the other side.
I mean, if the last few years haven't taught you that, I don't know.
What it's going to take, um, this idea that we're going to put ourselves on the line to defend, I don't know, Amazon or something like that.
Just seems insane to me, but a lot of people are still sort of trapped in this residual.
Conservatism in a, in the negative sense.
And so I wanted to say, no, you, you have to be conscious of yourself as being pressed.
I mean, I know we kind of shy away from this stuff, but you have to recognize that we are the ones who are being held down by the systems.
We're the only ones being held down by the system.
And when other people are giving you this language about victimhood and everything else.
When they're being subsidized by the system, when they wouldn't have a life or career without these claims, when everything they are and have is what they have taken from us, we don't have to listen to them.
We don't have to take their claims seriously.
I mean, it's just kind of a faint buzzing in your ears that's sort of annoying.
You don't need to take it seriously because once you understand the concrete interest behind it, you see it for what it is.
And the second thing is they say, okay, well, what are the concrete things people can do right now?
I will get into that more, uh, perhaps some of that in the book with some more essays and everything else.
But of course, one of the things, and I know this may sound like a cop out, is you just don't put it up publicly.
I mean, we don't, I'm not going to like, we're not comic book people.
You can't just say the book and just, just leave people hanging there.
Well, I mean, I'm working on this book, Nationalists Without a Nation, and that will get into, I think, some of the things that need to be done.
Where we've been, where we're going, what the end game is, but also a lot of it is just stuff that we can't just announce to the world that this is what we're going to do, because one, you don't do that.
I mean, when you're facing political opponents, you don't like announce your plan in advance.
But the second thing, of course, is that not everybody has the same role to play.
So if I say, you know, your mission is to go out and do X, well, that's not really true.
I mean, if you're.
Employed at a certain place where you have a very specialized career path and.
You're going to go out there and get doxed and possibly get fired and put your family in jeopardy.
I mean, that's not like a glorious victory for the movement.
I mean, whatever psychologically, it might make you feel better.
I feel like you're doing something, but maybe that's not the right path forward for you.
Maybe there's a different thing you can do at the same time.
If you're like an 18 year old kid, you've got a lot of different choices, but.
Ultimately, you have to commit to one path and understand that it's going to close off other ones.
And if I just jump up and say, Hey, everyone like do this, I think you're just leading.
Even if you have the best of intentions, you're going to end up leading a lot of people down the wrong path for them.
And it's going to pay horrible consequences down the road.
So, I mean, that's, that's a long and short way of saying.
What is to be done?
I mean, the answer is it really depends on you and where you are.
The question is not what is to be done.
The question is, do you have to do something?
And the answer is yes.
And the options for what you can do are countless.
Well, so on that note, and also on sort of leaving conservatism behind, what would you make of Michelle Malkin's speech?
She was certainly a big get for us in terms of prestige and somebody who's been in the mainstream for so long.
And for a few years now, she's been kind of journeying towards us and away from, you know, the National Review crowd.
Well, like a lot of people, I think, who were in the conservative movement, because I remember seeing her at CPAC years ago, many years ago, in fact.
And I shared a platform with her a long time ago, along with the late Andrew Breitbart.
I think it was like Americans for Prosperity, you know, some regional gathering.
And even then, I noticed, because back then she was talking about what now seem rather mild excesses of the cultural left.
I got up there, I think I talked about Saul Alinsky and talked about what was happening on campus.
Andrew Breitbart got up there and was talking about, like, cultural Marxism and stuff like that.
He even mentioned the old documentary that William Lind made way back when, that's still floating around.
I don't think he mentioned that during the speech, but he mentioned it to me backstage, and that was the only time I ever really talked to him.
So, I mean, he knew the score, at least on that level.
But, you know, immediately afterward, I remember in the afternoon, then it came to the point of, OK, you've got everybody riled up, you know what they're against, what are we for?
And it turned into, you know, we're going to get rid of the import-export bank and just all these kind of marginal issues that really aren't going to help any of the people who are showing up to these conferences.
And I think Michelle Malkin, like a lot of people within Conservatism Inc., there's always this kind of dissonance between what Getting people active and involved and then what you're actually trying to deliver for them and at some point you're going to realize the disconnect and at that point you have a choice to make which is you can either go with it and maybe try to do the best you can to steer it in the right direction or
I guess another choice would be simply to embrace the cynicism and just embrace it as a grift.
But even though we call a lot of people grifters, I actually don't think, you know, with the exception of really obvious things like the Lincoln Project or something like that, I don't think most people like get up in the morning and say, ha ha, like I'm going to rip off these people.
I think a lot of them have sort of tricked themselves into thinking that they're doing good even when they're not.
But I think she's taken the hardest path, which is that she basically I mean, she spoke truth to power at CPAC, where she called these people, you know, frauds to their faces for embracing a mass immigration agenda while telling people that they're defending America.
And as a result, she was basically pushed out of Conservatism Inc.
Then she spoke up in defense of other figures and was told basically, no, you're not allowed to be associated with this guy or that guy.
And so now she's fully defending The interests of those who she has been speaking out on behalf of for so long, but at a certain point, you just can't do that within the conservative movement anymore.
They just won't let you do it.
So she's taking the hardest path, and I think she deserves all the respect in the world for what she's taken on, and I thought her speech was magnificent, frankly.
And I think it also captured a lot of people who, like me, Who have at least come through the American conservative movement in one point or another.
I mean, you don't want to just break with these people in the sense of just endlessly carping or, you know, why won't this movement do what I say and everything like that.
It's like, look, I mean, a movement is not everybody bow to me and I'm the leader.
I mean, that's not the kind of productive thinking we need, but at the same time, you do have this.
Really radical disconnect between who leads the quote-unquote conservative movement and who makes up the rank-and-file.
The rank-and-file is far more militant, right-wing, and I would say incisive than the leadership.
The leadership, very often, I mean, you want to attribute it to conspiracy, but a lot of times these guys really, truly do not understand what they're dealing with.
It's forever 1983.
I mean, I don't think I need to lecture you on that.
As far as, I mean, you've dealt with that with your own experience.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, but this is your, you have this sort of slogan of, uh, that people believe their own propaganda, and it's very, very true.
Over the long term, you do.
I mean, I think it was Ignatius Loyola who said, uh, perform the acts of faith and faith will follow.
And there is something sort of, I mean, you see that certainly with the history of conversions, where the first generation might do it for practical reasons, but the second generation really believes it.
And I think that's true in politics, even within the span of one lifetime.
I mean, people get surrounded in a certain situation, they start saying certain things, but eventually you come to believe those things.
And there's also, and this is something we talked about at the very beginning with Burnham and, you know, real politics, concrete politics, real interests.
You know, where you stand is where you sit, basically.
If you are in a group that has a certain amount of funding, And lets you go so far, talking about issues like immigration, for example, and you've got a comfortable existence within that movement, you're going to defend being a part of that movement.
You may even believe that this is the best way forward.
But then when you get pushed out, suddenly your opinion on a lot of things is going to change.
I think that one of the reasons Michelle Malkin deserves a lot of credit is because she wasn't just Pushed out.
It wasn't, I mean, I mean, she was in the sense that she probably didn't understand how cynical the other side was going to be about it.
But I mean, she took certain steps knowing that there was going to be a cost and she took them anyway.
And I think that deserves a lot of respect in contrast to other people who are just kind of victims.
You know what I mean?
Like they find themselves cut off and they have no idea why.
I feel bad for those people, but.
I mean, I'd say it's more courageous to knowingly step forward and take those arrows.
Certainly she was more courageous than I was, who essentially, you know, it took me a very long time to even get to where I am now.
Oh, you deserve more credit than that.
Come on.
I mean, you were getting written about by the SPLC when you were, I mean, in your early 20s.
You were doing stuff sufficiently radical.
Yeah.
I mean, in some ways we were sort of, uh, those media to rise guys, uh, did a quick interview with me after the speech and they said, uh, one of the things they asked about was YWC.
And the thing is, I mean, we were essentially ahead of our time and we were basically preaching Trumpism for Trump.
Uh, and you know, again, it's all there.
I mean, Buchanan was talking about these issues long before.
It's just, we are where we are now.
And we have to think about where we are now.
I mean, there are things that are possible now, which weren't possible then, and there were things which were possible then, which aren't possible now.
The idea then was that we would sort of take a line that was about as far as you could go within mainstream conservatism and let the left, like, come at us.
Well, for those who don't know, YWC was Youth for Western Civilization.
Right.
It was basically a paleoconservative college student group that Greg founded and led.
When did you found it exactly?
Like 2009?
No, it was like 2007, I think.
Oh wow, okay.
It was pretty early, yeah.
Yeah, way before my time.
Sorry.
I probably think it was founded that night, but that's when I found it.
I mean, and you know, that's the other thing, is you're sort of putting up a flag and saying, You know who you can rally to it we're saying like here are some people doing stuff but you know there are some things that I learned from the experience there were some things I did right there are some things I did wrong there are some personal failings of mine there were some.
Things that I was weak about then which I think I'm better at now just in terms of you know technical skills and administration and things like that and.
You know, I think that it is something which is still missing.
So, you know, stay tuned to this space.
I mean, I do, I am giving some thought to the kind of thing that could be set up for people.
One thing that I have learned and I've kind of cautioned people about in the past is there is some, there's always a temptation to be part of like a membership based movement, right?
And it may seem contradictory, because I'm always telling people, you know, start groups, start tribes, start families, start networks of families, start essentially, you know, countries in miniature.
But there's a difference between that and a membership group that's dedicated to purely political ends.
Because the problem with the latter, and you're seeing this, of course, now, this comes on the day that I believe District of Columbia, joined by the ADL, and of course, every law firm that's ever existed, Is going to sue all these various groups who were at January 6th and everything else.
And so, you know, we kind of saw that played out with the Charlottesville lawsuit where you might end up with people who may or may not have even been there getting roped into something because their name was on a dotted line in some group.
We do have to maybe rethink the approach of.
We don't just need to line up in orderly files to be mowed down, you know?
It's sort of like using horse cavalry charges during World War I or something.
At a certain point, like, you have to say it's not like, oh, we're just not being brave enough.
It's like, no.
I mean, maybe the tactics need to be rethought a little bit.
It's an interesting point.
Okay.
Well, here's a question for you.
Why do you think Michelle Malkin has ended up Sort of becoming more radicalized than Ann Coulter.
The two are compared constantly by friend and foe alike.
I wouldn't say we're radicalized just because, I mean, I don't, I consider myself radical in some ways, but not in others.
I mean, one of the things, yeah, but I don't want to, I don't want to accept the frame uncontested simply because a lot of what we're saying, I mean, if you put it on a chart, of what's popular and what's not.
I mean, let's not forget, like, what we believe is more popular than so-called mainstream conservatism.
I mean, if you say, like, absolute enforcement of all immigration laws, that was one of the preconditions I said to before we can even talk about civic nationalism, like that by itself is it's just never going to happen in the current political context.
Never.
Uh, even something like having English be the official national language.
I mean, that's wildly popular, even among Democrats, even among now, even now, you're still never going to see that happen.
And yet, if you take a poll of something like, you know, we're going to get rid of the minimum wage or insert whatever economic walkery you have.
I'm not even saying whether it's a good idea or a bad idea.
They're not very popular.
But, you know, the Republican Party will go to the mat to defend certain unpopular ideas.
So, you know, one, I don't think we're being that radical.
And two, it's not that the Republicans will do whatever it takes to win.
If it was that situation, we would have actually won by now.
We'd be in a far better place.
They're sometimes deeply committed, principled people, and their principles are just incredibly stupid and self-destructive.
But as far as the different career trajectories of Michelle Malkin and Al Coulter, I mean, you can never overrate chance and circumstance.
I mean, if one thing had gone differently or another thing had gone differently, I mean, who knows?
But I think part of it is also because Michelle Malkin has really centered in on immigration now after Trump.
Whereas I think in Coulter, you know, with audio America, that was obviously the most influential book of that election cycle.
Yeah.
Reshaped Donald Trump's opinion on it, supposedly reshaped history in a lot of ways.
And she was within the inner circle for at least a little while, and then he just didn't listen to her.
And so now she's sort of in this position where she still has that kind of.
Quasi insider access.
And so sacrificing a platform at this point might not be the best move for her.
At least that may be.
I mean, I'm kind of mind reading here, but I think that's probably what she's thinking.
Whereas I mean there was no point where Donald Trump like took Michelle Malkin into his confidence or something like that And you know obviously in culture has turned ferociously against Donald Trump even more ferociously than I would think many listeners to this podcast But I mean, I think that comes betrayal doesn't come from indifference is because so many people especially her I put so many hopes in this guy and And it's not that he failed to turn out to be the God Emperor or something like that.
It's just he failed to do the stuff that he said he was going to do in his platform.
I mean, there were things he could have done day one, which would have changed everything and would have been better for him.
But here we are.
Oh, and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, right?
Well, yeah, but I think even more than that, it's people who, it's just something about politics in general where so many people put You know, they weren't active before Donald Trump, and so they put all these hopes into this guy who said, and I quote, you know, if you elect me, all your dreams will come true.
And, you know, we weren't asking for all our dreams to come true.
We were just asking for a stupid wall and a couple other like common sense things like a remittance tax.
I mean, that's that's just a no brainer.
And instead, he just kind of got led around by the nose by Kushner and Paul Ryan and whoever else you want to blame.
At a certain point, I mean, you can say, well, it was the swamp, it was this, it was that, but, you know, eventually the buck stops with him.
Yeah.
Well, and the proof is in the pudding.
I mean, however you want to explain it, you know, a lot of good and obvious things didn't happen and politics is about winning.
Politics is about results, right?
And this, I mean, the funny thing is, is that of course, if you look at, I mean, there's the usual war on the timeline and everything else with Twitter, but.
I mean, if you look at the polls, the nomination is his, if he wants it.
And, you know, we have to see, obviously it's a long way away.
We have to see the health of the two, you know, President Biden and Donald Trump.
Both are not exactly young at this point, but I mean, if he's the nominee, there's going to be a very heavy temptation to pretend this is sort of 2015 all over again.
And, oh, well, he's learned from his mistakes.
And it's like, well, has he?
I mean, where do we take, but you know, again, you gotta ask yourself, like, who else is there?
And if the answer is no one, you know, there's, that's another question.
Do we even bother with this stuff?
Do we even, I mean, the political horse race just kind of sucks people in, but at a certain point you have to ask yourself, is it just as kind of futile as watching the Washington football team, as I believe they are still called.
Washington football team.
Yeah, well, and this is, I mean, this is a whole can of worms that I'm actually not really confident on.
Yeah, I mean, we're not going to get into that now, maybe around the midterm.
2024 is just, oh man, it's just so much.
I think, you know, I think the real hope is just what comes out of the conference.
And the thing with the conference and the thing with the conversations you have since, and with the broader intellectual ferment that's going on right now, is I think COVID Sort of took over a lot of issues.
And for me, it was just never central.
I mean, I know it's central for a lot of people, but to me, it's just sort of, here's this thing that happened.
And, you know, at the end of the day, I still want to talk about immigration.
I still want to talk about affirmative action.
I still want to talk about the things that are affecting our people more directly, but now COVID and everything tied up in it has become sort of this legitimacy check for the system.
And in that sense, it's very important because, again, you know, one of the the main takeaways that I just want people to people to drill into their skull is it is their system.
It is their regime.
And the same people who lie to you on issues of race are telling you about this other stuff.
Now, maybe they're telling the truth.
Maybe they're not.
But, you know, you have to you're not wrong to distrust the establishment when I mean, you know, you've been lied to about all this other stuff.
And it's also, you know, just the way the media operates, which I think we saw a pretty spectacular demonstration of that in the way they're dealing with what happened in Wisconsin, where you had, I mean, it would have been out of control to write that and like some dystopian novel where you have a career criminal who was let out because of lenient Justice policies, you know run down a Christmas parade killing old people and children and the result of the national media is to be like Oh, well, it was an SUV.
It was an accident.
No one could have predicted.
I mean They treat it like it's the the tornadoes that just happened.
It's just just one of those things Yeah, actually they ascribe more agency to that because they blame the tornadoes on climate change, but they blame the parade attack on the car Yeah, well, and what happened in Wisconsin would have been too much for the Turner Diaries, even.
That wouldn't have fit.
It wouldn't have been too much for anything.
I mean, if somebody came up to you raving about this going to happen, you'd just give them a, you know, okay, and you'd just kind of back away slowly.
But, I mean, here we are.
And at a certain point, I mean, when you look at the most ridiculous predictions of people from 10 years ago, and then you look at the world now, it's like, well, if anything, I mean, they were too understated.
I mean, already now we're in a situation where, you know, in certain areas, non-citizens are allowed to vote.
You know, already now we're in a situation where all the stuff that President Trump was mocked for saying, you know, if they take down Robert E. Lee, the founding father is going to be next.
Well, guess what?
You know, they removed Thomas Jefferson's statue.
And you have to ask yourself, like, OK, Well, what's supposed to come next according to this sort of nightmare glasses scenario?
And I don't think we can rule anything out at this point.
I mean, certainly the only thing that stops power is power, as Calhoun said.
And, you know, clearly the regime is unpopular, but is electing a Republican Congress really going to do anything to change that?
Yeah, well, I mean, I've.
I've heard the suggestion that it will before, such as in 2010 or 2014.
I'm not even cautiously optimistic anymore.
Yeah, I mean, I remember vaguely the Republican Revolution and, you know, during President Clinton.
And again, you had sort of the same thing.
You had all these promises, you had all these, you had the contract with America, it was going to do this, it was going to do that, and there was so much stuff possible then, even by the Democrats. I mean, stopping illegal immigration,
cold deporting those who are here, getting rid of affirmative action, getting rid of all these
policies.
And in many ways, the conservative movement saved all those policies because they were going to,
they thought they were going to win a larger share of the vote of all these people. And instead,
here we are. Yeah. Well, so now, and now for something completely different.
Something I wanted to actually kind of open up to listeners is Greg and I have been talking about how although we love this podcast, we do plan on continuing to do it regularly despite my four-month absence, on some level and at some point we are actually going to run out of thinkers.
There are actually only so many intellectual powerhouses out there, left, right and or white, And moreover, the number of them that Greg and I are both familiar with is, you know, shrinks the pool even more dramatically.
So you don't want to do like a six-parter on like Heidegger or something like that?
Yeah.
I mean, I would actually do that is the thing.
Well, you could maybe do that solo.
Like if we just kind of handed you left, right and white, you could just start doing like raving Heidegger and Baron Evola and, you know, Weaver and whoever else.
It's something, something aside from that, that I was thinking is, you know, for every one podcast about politics, there have got to be about a dozen podcasts about just cultural stuff, you know, films, literature, music, yada, yada, yada.
I keep referring to readers because that's what I'm always thinking about when I'm in
American Renaissance mode.
But if listeners would be interested in us talking about the great works, I mean Stendhal
or Raymond Chandler or whatever, as opposed to just philosophers or sociologists or even
I remember back in the day, Radix Journal had a great podcast about, you know, Stanley Kubrick movies and stuff like that, that at least I enjoyed very much.
The other thing we could start doing, And this might please those of you who are especially annoyed when Greg and I talk about things we like about Noam Chomsky and company, is for both Greg and I, there are leftist thinkers that influenced us, but not in like a positive way, in sort of an ironic way.
I think especially for Greg, reading leftist books, bemoaning how awful something is, with Greg thinking, oh man, this is great.
And for me, there were a lot of important left-wing books I read in high school and college that were very fashionable, and I remember reading them and being like, how can anybody take this seriously?
This is just absurd.
And that was a big part of my redpillings, reading stuff like The Shock Doctrine.
Or pretty much anything by a Naomi Wolf.
You know, we can do sort of episodes, dare I say, deconstructing leftist thinkers that have had no positive influence on Greg and I, just negative ones.
Or maybe that's too in the weeds.
What do you think?
Well, I think critical theory is one of the greatest weapons we can have right now.
It's just, I mean, and this is something from college where it's just the same people who are telling you about critical theory are these professors with tenure who get six-figure salaries for working very little.
And essentially are putting forth the ideology that justifies the ruling class and the ruling system and it just never turns on itself.
I mean again I think every to some extent there's sort of a meta narrative behind every major Hollywood film franchise every book every.
Everything that we can characterize as mainstream, which is that essentially we still have this kind of WASP ruling class circa 1910 that's running things behind the scenes.
I mean, there is even shades of it in Dune and the reactions to Dune and things like that, which is the thing I'm running on now.
And so deconstructing this kind of stuff really is important, not so much to navel gays about this or that particular product, but just to develop people's sense of like what to look for.
Like, OK, this is this is what they're doing here because they've sort of they've already armed us with the weapons that we need.
And I think the problem with a lot of conservatives is they just try to say, well, this isn't a thing.
You know, deconstruction isn't a thing or.
These sorts of power dynamics aren't really a thing.
We shouldn't even look into that.
You know, class interests we shouldn't look into, because we're all Americans or something, as if that identity is any less arbitrary.
Right.
Yeah, it's very superficial, kind of.
Yeah, and you also see this kind of thing with critical race theory, where they say, well, it's dividing us.
And, you know, the obvious retort is, well, if it's dividing us, and if that's the problem, is that it's divisive, you can always just give up, which is what they want us to do.
And then it's not dividing us anymore and ultimately you know they're not really arguing with like why this is a bad thing and you have to say not just oh this is dividing us but like no this is being designed to serve certain concrete interest more than that the very fact that we're aware of it shows that their whole narrative of power is completely backwards like there when somebody is getting paid a million dollars.
by some corporation to lecture you about how evil it is to be white.
I mean, you really need to start questioning whether you're the one who holds institutional power in the system.
And when they say, well, you can't be discriminated against because by definition you have all the institutional power.
It's like, well, whose definition?
Why do I need to believe anything that you say?
There's no obligation to.
I mean, it's just, you know, what Max Steiner would call a spook, right?
It's just something that's designed to frighten you into believing something that works against your own interests.
And one of the things that's very frustrating about a lot of American conservatives is they just kind of go along with it.
And they say, well, you know, these are the rules and by golly, we just got to follow them.
And it's like, well, who set those rules?
Because the other side certainly doesn't seem to believe in them.
I can't help but observe, you know, whenever they talk about human rights is these universal things that we need to do.
And to defend and fight for around the world.
I mean, all those things seem to go right out the window when it comes to certain issues.
I mean, right now, a lot of things about we consider basic human rights about freedom of speech or freedom of association or even being allowed to engage in trade or freedom of movement, all of these things that we were told are inalienable and can't be denied to everyone.
I mean, in a lot of so-called free countries, those just don't exist anymore.
And It's not that leftist critics are just failing to speak out about this.
It's that the same people who have been lecturing you about this are leading the charge, you know, enforcing this new tyranny on you.
Beautifully put, Greg.
Just absolutely beautifully put.
I've got to say.
I'm pretty good when I get worked up.
But to those of you listening, please let us know what you think about all of this in the comments.
You can always email me as well.
My email address is just roberts at amaran.com.
It's like the first name, Robert, but with an S at the end, at amaran.com, just like the website.
I would give Greg's email address, but your chances of him actually reading it is relatively low.
Sorry, Greg.
I just got a lot of catching up to do.
I mean, I got no excuse.
It's just, there's just a ton of stuff I gotta catch up on, and I'm working on a solution to that to be more responsive to people.
I have a better system.
But I mean, these are all good problems to have, right?
Yeah.
A lot is happening right now, sort of off the grid.
And these are all good things.
And this is also something that, you know, maybe the overall movement, so to speak, needs to kind of internalize, which is part of the idea of criticizing the ruling system and dismantling it and its narratives.
I'm using critical theory from the right as a weapon.
The other thing is we don't need to be dependent on their spokesman and their platforms and their regime.
I mean, I have no interest in speaking to a quote unquote mainstream journalist, not just because I don't think there's anything to be gained, not just because, you know, they already know whatever story they're going to write about you.
And it's not even just because I don't think they're intellectually capable of understanding The words that I'm saying, I mean, I, you know, it'd be like trying to instruct a dog on Play-Doh or something.
I mean, it's just pointless, but you're just going to ignore the dog.
But it's more that everything we should be doing right now should be building up our own self-sufficiency.
Everything that we have tried to do where they say, we're going to do what they say, build your own.
App, build your own website, build your own network, build your own bank, build your own payment processing.
We're going to have to do all of those things.
And so everything has to be dealt with a constructive mindset when it comes to within the movement and with a critical mindset, with a dismantling mindset to everything that's outside of it.
I just don't see anything to be gained with engaging with the so-called mainstream in terms of Trying to argue people to our positions because, frankly, I think reality has a way of doing that.
the Biden administration, I think, has quote unquote radicalized far more people
than anything that, you know, bitch could do.
Yeah, it's funny what you say.
I spent so much time in my teens and my early 20s Trying to convince people one-on-one to our worldview, just peers and friends and colleagues.
And looking back, man, it was a lot of wasted time and wasted energy, wasted aggravation.
It is just... Yeah, I mean, you only have so much time in the world, and I'm not saying you want to build, like, an echo chamber, and I'm not saying you don't put up ways for people to find you.
I mean, one of the things Mr. Taylor always talks about, and one of the things we try to follow at American Renaissance, is we're not just writing for the comrades, so to speak.
I mean, we're trying to write stuff where a fair-minded person can look at it and say, like, okay.
But you have to understand that the fair-minded person who acts in the marketplace of ideas, I mean, that's kind of an intellectual construct in and of itself.
It's not a real thing.
It's like sort of when you're studying economics, and they're like, oh, assume a rational actor.
It's like, yeah, but we're not dealing with rational actors.
We're dealing with people, and people don't act rationally all the time.
Or they can't perceive, like, what their own rational self-interest should be.
And so, I mean, you have to think to yourself more, okay, yeah, we're putting out this stuff, we're doing the necessary work, but that's not sufficient.
If people come to you, and a lot of people are coming to us just because reality is so bad, and saying, now what?
I mean, I think that's the critical thing.
Okay, this is what we do from here.
That's what we need to be working on.
Because I think what happened last time, Uh, by last time I mean really, you know, Trump and then immediate aftermath of Trump is you had this large group of people and then there was nowhere for them to go, you know, like right after Trump had been elected, then everyone was just sort of like wandering around.
Like now what do we do?
There's no coherent project.
At this point, I think there are a number of coherent projects, and they're being built regardless of what I or you or the other side or anyone has to say about it, and that's my greatest source of optimism.
Well, honestly, I think that might be a wrap.
This is us playing catch-up again, and really, everybody, let me know what you want us to talk about.
Before I let you off that easy, I mean, what was sort of the biggest thing that struck you upon coming back that changed?
There are a few two enemy lurkers on this podcast for me to get into all of that, I think.
Maybe in some episode in the future.
Fair enough.
Trying to keep my movements and my associations pretty tightly under wraps.
Whereas I just kind of blunder around randomly doing whatever I want.
Completely indifferent as to who's watching or why.
I mean, that's actually one of the other things.
You know, at the end of the day, how many people You know, most, I think the most people you're even capable of having a real human relationship with is something like 500 people.
I think that's the, that's the magic number for 99% of people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it's sort of like, you got to ask yourself, like, who are the people whose opinions you're actually concerned about?
And, you know, other than those people, what do you care?
You know?
I mean, The other big thing is sort of, if you're not living out your ideals, if you're not living your life in such a way where you're approaching, you know, the concrete realization of what you think you've been put on earth to do, you're always going to have that ennui.
You're always going to have that boredom.
You're always going to have that frustration.
And so a lot of people I know are out there and they say, well, what should I be doing?
I mean, you really have to ask yourself first, well, what do you, What do I want?
You know, what is the ultimate endgame?
What is the goal?
And if you don't have an answer for that, I mean, maybe that's where we should begin the conversation.
And that's also the value of breaking down some of these more fundamental ideas, even going back to first principles as far as philosophy, but also seeing echoes of these things, even in popular culture, even in corrupted popular culture, especially because now, I mean, a lot of good ideas get promoted.
It's just usually via the the bad guys in popular culture No, but that's yeah, it's a good lesson
You know, be the change you wish to see in the world and all that.
Right.
I mean, again, you know, there's a lot of, uh, when we were getting into some of the socialists and first wave communists, I mean, there's not they would be considered not just right wing, they'd be considered right wing fanatics by today's standards.
I mean, it was something that was just rereading Marx.
And he had said something just kind of a throwaway line about, you know, oh, well, capitalism forces you to do one thing you don't really want to do.
And if you don't do it, you starve to death.
But once we have communism, a guy could Hunt and fish and then, you know, grow a cattle herd and then criticize literature.
And it's like, yeah, like modern progressives aren't going to let you do any of those things.
I mean, you're going to need like climate meters to go fishing and hunting will probably be banned.
And you know, what do you mean?
Like enjoying land and having some sort of like pastoral life.
Like you're not going to be able to do that.
I mean, you're going to be stuffed in an apartment because you have a moral obligation to do that.
And you know, eat the bugs bigot and all this kind of stuff.
So.
I mean, what we're really getting at here is that the current system, it's not just that, oh, it's going to collapse because it might not.
I mean, that's the big nightmare.
It's not just that it's psychologically unsatisfying.
It's not just that it's against our deepest needs and wants and desires.
It's that it's psychologically suicidal and everything that Marxists and critical theorists have written about alienation is true to some extent except they're responsible for it more than anybody else You know, it's not some capitalist with a top hat who's put people in the situation.
It's them and So, you know, that's something that has to be Not just identified and combat directly, but we have to talk about how we're going to do that I mean, how do you subvert subversion?
How do you subvert subversion?
Okay, well I think that'll do it for this week.
Hope y'all are happy with the return of Left, Right, and White, and we'll talk to you guys next week, huh?